


Winning the Fields Medal: The Case for a Platonic Stydia

by homoeroticismforthewin



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Meta, Non-fic, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-25
Updated: 2012-08-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 20:25:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homoeroticismforthewin/pseuds/homoeroticismforthewin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An argument for a platonic relationship between Stiles and Lydia rather than a romantic one, for reasons related to the narrative and to cultural biases in the parsing of male and female relationship dynamics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winning the Fields Medal: The Case for a Platonic Stydia

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: Throughout the essay I refer to parts of Lydia, Stiles, and Jackson. I am not in any way implying that Lydia or any other character suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, I am merely naming and externalizing the various intrapersonal aspects of the character personalities.

Lydia Martin is beautiful. Lydia Martin is popular. Lydia Martin clearly has a ridiculous outlier IQ, somewhere in the origin of almost never happens. Like, statistically, you could go your whole life without ever knowing someone that smart. And Lydia Martin spends a lot of time pretending to be less than she is to appease the people who can’t handle the sheer awesome power of her brain, including Jackson, and her parents, and her friends.

Stiles is smart too. He’s smart, and perceptive, and best of all, he actually wants the people around him to be exactly as awesome as they are capable of being. He doesn’t want reflected glory, he wants to see his friends fulfill their potential for their own sakes. Stiles likes himself well enough to not bruise his ego on the accomplishments of others.

 

Stiles was happy for Scott when he was turned into a werewolf, despite all the scary stuff, because he saw how Scott was able to do incredible things. He saw the werewolf powers as something that made his already exceptional friend (because while Scott wasn’t an athlete before, he was always a great fucking person) More exceptional. And if he was jealous at all, it remained well below the surface. There was no implication that This Should Have Been Me (I’d argue that the Batman/Robin comment had to do with a fear of being left behind and an acknowledgment of his own awesomeness). Stiles was blown away by how awesome the superpowers were, and how Scott was a good guy and only good things should happen for him. And when he thought that maybe there were downsides to them? Then he felt bad for Scott. Because Stiles knows that it isn’t all about him.

Fundamentally, Stiles has a good heart. He happily sits on the bench cheering his heart out for Scott. He knows that his Dad is lonely and doesn’t take care of himself, and so Stiles takes on the responsibility of hanging out with him late nights at work, of making sure he eats right, of taking care of him. He knows what Lydia’s intelligence is worth and he wants her to acknowledge it, too. He knows she’s in love with Jackson, and he lets her go to him, even when he’s the one who took her to the dance. He sits on her bed while she leans in to touch him (what he has wanted for years) and when she calls him Jackson and passes out he accepts it without rancor.

That’s kind of a big deal, guys. Stiles is sitting in the bedroom of Lydia, who is not wearing much, who has just been coming on to him, who is passed out in front of him and on serious drugs. And he sighs, and moves on, disappointed that she wasn’t interested in Him. But even before that, when he had no reason to suspect that she was thinking of Jackson, he still didn’t touch her because she was clearly loopy. And when she’s passed out- not an untoward glance. I’m not saying give Stiles a cookie for not being a rapist. But this is Stiles seeing Lydia as an actual human being and respecting her on that level despite the fact that she is pretty and thus culturally coded as an object to be coveted. And boy, does he covet her.

That isn’t always something you can count on in the real world, the treatment of women as people. And it doesn’t look like Stiles even Considers taking advantage of the situation. And that might be Stiles being a genuinely decent human being, which we know him to be. That might be part of Jeff Davis’ world free of racism/sexism/homophobia mandate, and if so Kudos, Jeff. But either way, it is worth noting that although Stiles clearly wants Lydia, he views her as much more than a sexual conquest or arm candy or an ego boost. He sees her personal rights as inviolable.

Stiles treats Lydia like she is a person. He doesn’t think she’s perfect or fragile: he tells her off when he thinks she’s wrong, and he subjects her to fair criticism. He doesn’t think she’s cruel or stupid for rejecting him, he just tries to explain why they’d be good together. He worries about her when she’s hurt, protects her when she’s vulnerable, and looks forward to what she will achieve. Stiles thinks Lydia is awesome, and he’s Right. Lydia is totally awesome.

Now, a lot of Lydia’s popular girl persona is informed by cultural expectations of sex and gender. While Lydia is sufficiently self-aware to see where some of her interactions with Jackson are situated culturally (visible in the breakup scene, and when Jackson mocks her at the dance), she is still emotionally impacted by his cruelty and seems to endure some fairly vicious bullying from Jackson (“You ruin everything”). She downplays her strengths to build him up (“I do plenty of sucking just for his benefit”) and fairly transparently jockeys for power in the relationship through manipulation and making Jackson jealous (some of this is possibly due to Jackson’s limitations in terms of emotional availability, since Lydia is pragmatic and does what works). In fact, most of the tension in the Jydia dynamic is expressed through spiteful and gendered cruelty that prances around the edges of a domestic violence dynamic, up to and including Lydia essentially attempting to martyr herself to save Jackson from himself. But the hostility in the relationship goes in both directions, with Lydia delighting in emasculating Jackson (at the bowling alley and in the parking lot of the video store), and Jackson devaluing Lydia and accusing her of undermining him (at the dance and in the hallways at school).

But we need to understand that persona!Lydia, who relates to sex as a lure (“give him a little taste”), or a manipulation (“plenty of sucking just for his benefit”), or as what women trade for flattery (“… one of those girls who lifts up their skirt…”) is the same one whose parents have no idea that she’s smart at all, who don’t know how to interact with her or even how to accurately describe her to the police. This is the Lydia with the make up on, the Lydia who preens and pretends to be worse at bowling than she is.

And Stiles sees the other one. He sees the Lydia who cries (and still thinks she’s beautiful), he sees the Lydia who is only 60% evil, he sees Lydia the future Fields Medal winner. And that is a lovely dynamic. So if Lydia is so awesome, and Stiles is so appreciative of that awesomeness, why shouldn’t they be together?

Well, because A, a woman being fabulous and a man being appreciative of that fabulosity is not actually innovative storytelling. Stiles is more perceptive in his view of Lydia than anyone else in her life, but the Lydia in Stiles’ admiring gaze is still more object than active participant. It’s all about worship, and it is almost entirely one-directional. If the story goes Boy wants Girl, Girl appreciates ardor, Boy gets girl, that kind of turns the whole thing into an ugly little reward play. Yes, boys, if you too are very good, you will be rewarded with a beautiful girlfriend of your own! And frankly, women are not owed to men as a reward for human decency. The story that gets told when deserving loser boy wins pretty popular girl, thus securing his own status is the same story that slides through the greasy minds of mass murderers like Marc Lépine (and btw, if you have any questions about why feminism and the representation of strong women on tv is important, google Marc Lépine and look at the autocompletes that come up).

It’s a concept that goes hand-in-hand with the ugly little concept called “Friend-zoning”. This term, I’m sure you’re familiar with it, is applied to women who have the gall to fail to return sexual feelings for someone. When a woman likes a man but, horror of horrors, does not want to fuck him, she has friend-zoned him. The term is usually spat out with considerable resentment, as though women had no right to reject the advances of men unless they are in some way reprehensible, as though “nice guys” were owed sex by women of their choice by simple virtue of their largely being decent human beings. Of course, if they buy into this kind of logic that decent human being thing goes pretty much straight out the window. Do you see what I mean about pretty women being culturally coded as objects to covet?

But getting back to my point, they should not be together for another reason, too. Reason B being, Stiles provides Lydia with something a hell of a lot more valuable than ardor and devotion and romance. Stiles has never been a boyfriend before, and I don’t doubt that he’d eventually be a good one. But Stiles is an epic, legendary, awesome friend. And frankly, Lydia could use that. She’s right that she has been ignored and lost in the shuffle. Nobody let her in on the werewolf stuff at all. Nobody bothered to check in with her, even when she was asking for help on the damn chalkboard and hallucinating. And I understand why that happened, but Lydia getting back together with Jackson doesn’t fix that. Lydia is pretty broken. Jackson is pretty broken. But of course, Jackson has Danny.

Danny is willing to stand up to Jackson, and tell him to get over himself. Danny has his own life, but is willing to make time for Jackson. Danny not only notices, but is bothered when Jackson won’t tell him about things, because Danny values Jackson as a person and wants to support his friend. Lydia has Allison, but Allison is keeping so much from her and is so distracted, not just because of her insane hunter family, but also because of her dreamy forbidden boyfriend, that Lydia doesn’t really get much from their friendship except for the opportunity to criticize Allison’s clothes. Allison still seems shocked every time Lydia presents her with evidence of her intelligence. In short, Lydia is pretty legitimately alone, and her defenses are so high that she can’t bring herself to let them down for even a second (“Butterfly”).

Counterintuitively, I am more okay with Lydia dating Jackson than I am with Lydia dating Stiles. Part of this is that although both Lydia and Jackson are deeply broken characters with a history of hurting each other, both accidentally and maliciously, Lydia has shown a capacity to hold her own with Jackson. Stiles likely could keep up with Lydia, he’s plenty smart enough and he isn’t intimidated easily. In the long run they might be highly compatible.

But Stiles deserves better than Persona Lydia, and Persona Lydia would never consider Stiles, in fact would actively attempt to ruin him when she was done using him for an ego boost. Because Persona Lydia is there to keep the other Lydia hidden, she and Stiles would be working against each other. And honestly, Lydia isn’t in a place where she can safely ditch the Persona, yet. She needs the Persona because without her, she is vulnerable. The Persona makes Lydia strong. Not that the other Lydia is without strength, she is after all the one to confront Jackson/the Kanima. But Persona Lydia dragged Lydia through her parents’ messy divorce, her experience of being dumped, and her time as Peter Hale’s puppet. Persona Lydia is an asset to Lydia right now, even while she limits her.

And this is all above and beyond the fact that Lydia loves Jackson, who bolsters her Persona instead of attacking it. Jackson also understands her in a way that Stiles might not. He understands her brittleness, her incredible ambition, and her home life. Arguably both Jackson and Stiles can relate to Lydia’s dualism, as Jackson wears a Golden Boy Persona and Stiles wears a Goofball mask. We don’t have a lot of canon evidence to point to whether or not Jackson could actually handle a smart Lydia and whether or not he’s figured out how smart she really is. The guy isn’t actually stupid (he figured out the werewolf thing pretty quickly), so it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Most of what we’ve canonically seen about Jackson at this point is what he wants the world to see and what he’s afraid of the world seeing, both of which are essentially representations of his persona.

What Jackson provides for Lydia is support for Persona Lydia, and possibly some support for the other Lydia, too. He reinforces her popularity, but clearly there is a softer and more intimate side of their relationship (as glimpsed in the bedroom scene in the season finale). On some level, he cares about Lydia qua Lydia, which is actually pretty unusual. The only other person we can really say that about is Stiles Honestly, Allison appears to be fairly close to Lydia, but seems to have transitioned from Lydia as popularity mentor to Lydia as confidant. They don’t seem particularly close at this point. Although we have precious few Allison/Lydia scenes to work from here, so they might well be closer than I can infer.

At any rate, that support for the persona, support for the less accessible internal self, and genuine loving connection is what Lydia provides to Jackson as well. The two characters mirror each other, and their relationship, while strange, is a surprisingly egalitarian one despite (and perhaps because of) their apparent hostility to each other. They stand to grow in similar ways, and while they may not be destined to be together forever (but then who is?), they do seem likely to share a deep and abiding understanding of one another.

The way that Jackson and Lydia attack each other while in a relationship largely seems to shore up their defenses rather than break them down (although that stops being true after Jackson dumps Lydia). This is interesting because while they clearly aggravate each other, they both act more like themselves (or at least more like their personas) in response to the irritant. Whereas when Stiles challenges Lydia, she reveals more of herself (free of Persona). She takes more chances. And while that is overwhelmingly a good thing, it is questionable whether or not that would be a good thing at this point for Lydia, especially in the context of a romantic relationship.

Because what Stiles offers Lydia is first and foremost a complete dismantling of her public persona. Not only would her social standing crash by association, but Stiles would do nothing but draw attention to her intelligence, both because he’d be so proud of her and because if Stiles and Lydia’s brains ever ended up on the same wavelength there would be a genius explosion of epic proportions. Seriously, people might die.

And while that would be freeing and potentially joyous for the internal Lydia, it would also leave her comparatively defenseless. It is, after all, Persona Lydia who is tough and unemotional. And an emotionally defenseless Lydia would be knocked flat on her ass so fast that it’d be like Peter Hale all over again. Because who can really cope with being used as a weapon by one parent against the other, or with being feared and despised by one’s entire class (popularity is not about admiration), or with being ignored by one’s best friend constantly, or with being fundamentally different from almost everyone you know? Stiles is too big a risk for Lydia to take.

What’s more, Stiles offers Lydia unremitting love and loyalty, encouragement to fulfill her potential, and frankly, something not entirely unlike worship. And while that sounds good in theory, it is problematic in practice. That level of love and loyalty would not be something Lydia would be immediately equipped to return. Her experiences of love to date have all been filtered through expectations and comparisons and preconditions. It would be like crawling out of the desert and then trying to drink from a fire-hose.

Even if it was fulfilling for Lydia, she wouldn’t know how to return the favor because nothing in her life has prepared her to do so. And while Stiles might be understanding about that, because he’s Stiles, how would Lydia feel about herself under those conditions? It would be Lydia being held up to exacting standards again (her own) and this time she wouldn’t have her popular Persona to fall back on. She would feel deficient in her capacity to love. Ultimately Lydia deserves that kind of relationship, but she will need to grow into it.

Further, her perfection is a defense, and any communication of how wonderful Lydia is stands to feed her narcissism, which is not only an external expression of faultlessness, but also an internal hyperawareness of one’s flaws. As such, Lydia cannot tolerate genuine and accurate praise because of the screaming of the internal critic that it triggers, and she cannot endure criticism because it confirms her worst fears about herself- that she is hopelessly broken and that everyone knows.

And what Lydia offers Stiles in return is predominantly an ego boost, followed by the wholesale destruction of his illusions. Because while Stiles treats Lydia as a human and sees her more clearly than arguably anyone else in her life, all because he is a wonderful human being, he has been obsessed with her for many years. Her returning his affections would mean that he is worth her attention. A more insecure individual would be dubious about whether or not they deserved the honor, would be afraid of setting a foot wrong lest they showed themselves to be unworthy.

And that could conceivably happen to Stiles, but he’s never struck me as having a particularly fragile sense of self-worth. I think that Stiles would know that he was worth Lydia’s time, that he has in fact known this the entire time that he has wanted her. And he does see her clearly. But that doesn’t mean that he knows exactly how deeply she needs connection and reassurance and support, or that he would be prepared to provide those for her. He sees Lydia as strong, and he loves her strength. But Lydia does not know how strong she is, not while she’s hiding behind her persona.

So what would it mean for Stiles to see the weakness and vulnerability in the only woman he has ever loved? Would he be disappointed? Pitying? Angry? Feel misled? I think that Stiles would respond to seeing Lydia’s weakness by trying to protect her, which is an easy trap to fall into. And I think that doing that, trying to protect Lydia, would be exactly the wrong thing to do.

It would imply that Lydia can’t handle things herself, thus providing external validation of Lydia’s insecurities. It would butt up against her sense of herself as competent, making her resentful. And depending upon how things played out, it could result in either an epic blowout wherein Lydia feels like Stiles doesn’t really know her (and she has a great deal invested in him knowing her, since so few people do), or in a new level of enmeshment and codependence as Lydia accepts that Stiles thinks she is weak and simply accepts his view of her. This would foreclose entirely on Lydia’s process of developing new defenses in lieu of Persona Lydia, and would have the added effect of disappointing Stiles further, even as he resolves more completely to take care of Lydia (because that’s what Stiles does, he is very much a nurturer and protector).

Essentially, I think that a romantic relationship between Stiles and Lydia at this point would be a disaster. And not even a disaster in a particularly narratively interesting way. Obviously I could be reading too much insecurity into Lydia’s character, but what I have here strikes me as largely consistent with the way that Lydia has been portrayed in relation to Jackson and her parents. But Lydia and Stiles have so much in common, and have such excellent chemistry, and are so interesting in their interpersonal dynamic that I feel like they must inevitably have a storyline together.

I just don’t think that storyline should occur in the context of a romantic relationship. Stiles and Lydia in a romantic relationship stand to explode (as detailed above), and part of the reason for this is because of their comparative isolation. In a sexual or romantic relationship, while both of them were deprived of other significant friendships (which, the state of Scott and Allison being what they are, they largely would be), they would essentially have nothing but each other. As Stiles’ first relationship, with the girl that he has been obsessed with for literally years, it is easy to picture the intensity and focus that Stiles could bring to the situation, resulting in possessiveness, jealousy, and suffocating, obsessive attention. Do I doubt that Stiles would be trying to make Lydia happy? No. I do suspect that he might try a little too hard, and that Lydia might find that endearing, and then annoying, and then overwhelming, and then smothering.

But if Stiles and Lydia getting to know each other better happened in the context of a platonic friendship? I think things would be very different. Because Stiles is generous with his friends, and also feels freer to push his friends. The Stiles who pelted Scott with lacrosse balls, would also pelt Lydia with criticism, and when that was balanced by Jackson’s support, that could soften Persona Lydia instead of entirely breaking her. Stiles would not only try to support Lydia in being the girl he thinks she is capable of being, he would also understand the pain of losing the mask and the importance of hanging onto it maybe a little longer. And it is important that friend!Stiles could do all of this intentionally, deliberately, carefully, whereas boyfriend!Stiles would be doing it instinctively, emotionally, and accidentally. I’ll give you three guesses as to which one of those is more likely to work.

Further, all of the ego boost that Stiles would get from Lydia as his girlfriend would also be available to him with Lydia as his friend. This is only true because Stiles, as we mentioned before, sees Lydia as a person. He wouldn’t see this as being friend-zoned. He would see it as being valued by someone awesome. And while he might be sad not to get to be with Lydia, he wouldn’t be resentful. And that my friends is the number one reason that Stiles and Lydia should be friends. Because that is a story that is not often told: a woman choosing a man as a friend and him counting it not as a loss but as a gain.

I really don’t think that Teen Wolf needs to be a morality play. But I do think that telling that story would be innovative, interesting, satisfying, and in character, much moreso than the alternatives, Lydia and Stiles don’t get together and there’s resentment, or Lydia and Stiles get together and ruin each other. We don’t really need more stories about the destructive power of love and sexuality, do we?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Stiles is the relatable character, the audience stand-in. To put that character in a position wherein he values a beautiful girl and still doesn’t resent her dating someone else because he knows that she loves him as a friend? That is epic. Now, reading this back over, it looks like I’m implying that friendship is worth more than romantic relationships, that romantic relationships are selfish as compared to the altruism of friendship. And I don’t generally believe that to be true. I think that’s just a bunch of sex-negative hooey. All good romantic relationships are based on respect, affection, and friendship. They just add in sex. And who doesn’t like sex?

If you asked Stiles which he’d prefer, I’m pretty sure we know what his answer would be. But again we return to two major points, the life stages of the characters, and the cultural context of the show. I have said previously that I think Stydia could work romantically in the long run. And I believe it. I think that Stydia getting together in their late twenties would be believable and interesting. But at this point? Lydia doesn’t know how to be herself in public, and Stiles doesn’t know how to be with other people in relationship. Developmentally they just aren’t ready for each other.

But here’s the real reason I want platonic Stydia. In our culture, there is a differential valuing of male relationships over female relationships. Male/male friendships are parsed as bromances, buddy movies, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, as heroic masculine pairings characterized by unspoken loyalty and trust. Female friendships essentially don’t exist, or when they do they are cast as pure emotional support- commiseration and ice cream. Do you see the difference? Men engaged in heroics versus women engaged in crying together?

The same pattern holds true in romantic relationships. When a man begins a romantic relationship, it is cast as a victory, he has won the girl. When a woman begins a romantic relationship, she is swept off her feet, carried away by forces beyond her control. Again, with the active/passive distinctions. And male/female friendships exist only as preludes to happily romantic endings in romantic comedies. They are essentially invisible.

Which is why a platonic Stydia relationship would be awesome. I don’t mean have Lydia go out with Jackson and Stiles go out with Derek and then have them sometimes talk at lunch. I mean have an epic Stydia bromance, hanging out, fighting monsters side-by-side, and engaged in deep conversation. An Actual Friendship, an egalitarian relationship between two well-developed characters who care about each other and who are both actively engaged in determining who and what they are to each other, who don’t take shit from each other and who understand each other well enough to inspire each other towards growth.

This is a story that would be uniquely well-suited to Teen Wolf. Not only because of Jeff Davis’ work to set the show in a world comparatively free of homophobia, racism, and sexism, but also because of how well-developed the characters are and how character-driven the show as a whole is. Also, because of the incredible acting talents of Holland Roden, Colton Haynes, and Dylan O’Brien, all three of whom bring incredible depth and clarity to their characters, and the incredible writing talents of Jeff Davis. If any team can make this happen it is them, and if any viewing audience deserves to see this story it is Us, the Teen Wolf fandom. Because this kind of story is lovely and transformative and exciting, and we would support it with every ounce of energy we have.


End file.
